Mathematics for the interested outsider

We’ve laid out the spaces of symmetric and antisymmetric tensors. We even showed that if has dimension and a basis we can set up bases for and . Now let’s count how many vectors are in these bases and determine the dimensions of these spaces.

The easy one will be the antisymmetric case. Every basic antisymmetric tensor is given by antisymmetrizing an -tuple of basis vectors of . We may as well start out with this collection in order by their indices: . But we also know that we can’t have any repeated vectors or else the whole thing collapses. So the basis for consists of subsets of the basis for . There are basis vectors overall, and we must pick of them. But we know how to count these. This is a number of combinations:

Now what about symmetric tensors? We can’t do quite the same thing, since now we can allow repetitions in our lists. Instead, what we’ll do is this: instead of just a list of basis vectors of , consider writing the indices out in a line and drawing dividers between different indices. For example, consider th basic tensor of : . First, it becomes the list of indices

Now we divide from , from , from , and form .

Since there are five choices of an index, there will always be four dividers. And we’ll always have four indices since we’re considering the fourth tensor power. That is, a basic symmetric tensor corresponds to a choice of which of these eight slots to put the four dividers in. More generally if has dimension then a basic tensor in has indices separated by dividers. Then the dimension is again given by a number of combinations:

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This is mainly an expository blath, with occasional high-level excursions, humorous observations, rants, and musings. The main-line exposition should be accessible to the “Generally Interested Lay Audience”, as long as you trace the links back towards the basics. Check the sidebar for specific topics (under “Categories”).

I’m in the process of tweaking some aspects of the site to make it easier to refer back to older topics, so try to make the best of it for now.